Vendetta: The thrill of the kill

“You beauty” I thought to myself as I looked at the harsh unwelcoming surface of a planet that was now sustaining one fourths of our species.

I thought of the time and it popped into my head; 5 more minutes for my shift to begin.

I was the new guy — the Systems engineer brought in to replace Charlie. Poor Charlie..

“You staring again?” said a voice chuckling behind me. As I turned I saw Silas walk into the room to check a panel on the wall.

“Never gets old Silas.. that view”

Silas sighed. He tapped his temple to make a note of something and the chip installed in our heads made a note of whatever Silas had just checked.

“It will Ritesh. Trust me. Give it a couple of months.”

He exited stage left having noted whatever it is he needed to. What Silas did was his business. He was the Bio engineer, in charge of upkeep for the various biomes installed around the station. If it was related to atmosphere, it was his job.

Him and our resident AI which was fondly called Jury (never really understood why).

It was time. I swung into action. I placed myself comfortably into my cockpit, brought down the ‘mesh’ over my head which was nothing but a glorified overhead display built into a helmet like device.

I quickly ran some routine system checks, updated and patched a few softwares, fixed a few glitches reported in the miner units (which were bringing in too much silicon) and finally got around to working with Jury to program some more modules that could run simulations for sustenance modules under the harsh surface.

In recent times we had discovered a subterranean network of tunnels that we believed could sustain life — partly because they were clearly not man made and whoever had made them had since abandoned ship to move to greener pastures or made extinct by devolution.

Whatever the case may be we hadn’t seen any green alien monsters running around the space station yet so we were good.

My work continued into the afternoon till it was time for a break.

I took the mandatory cool off session which was meditation with my eyes closed inside a meditation chamber and was mandated for all personnel.

5 minutes later I was walking into the mess hall where the others had already gathered.

I picked a disposable plate from the kitchen counter, a glass of palette cleanser which the pantry robot politely handed to me, took generous helpings of whatever goonk the dispensers were serving that day and took my place next to Abdul.

The rest of them were in serious conversation about the latest episode of ‘Rake the chains’ (which I had missed and therefore didn’t want spoilers). And thus I chose to sit next to Abdul who wasn’t very talkative.

“You didn’t see it did you!” said Rachel mocking me with her eyes from across the table. They had noticed my presence.

“No” I grinned sheepishly and this was their queue to go off on me.

“Son, you work too hard”

“Life called, it said get some”

A couple of more snide remarks, guffaws and they went right back to discussing the episode.

A few minutes later when the conversation ran its course, they resorted to normal (space worker) talk.

I listened because part of my job was to understand what was going on with the other modules as well.

Rachel was speaking passionately about her beloved telescope and how she had spotted unusual activity on Alpha Pretaurius (her new pet star) in a galaxy far far away.

Apparently Pretaurius had fired off a solar flare that had obliterated part of a moon from an orbiting planet.

I always wondered if our Sun could do that.

Haruto chimed in with his 2 cents and then promptly gulped down the remainder of his soup.

Silas and Jake chimed in with their 2 cents and veered the conversation towards a new species of insect Silas was trying to create.

A beetle that could sustain itself on the surface. They were already calling it Beetlejuice.

I kind of zoned out at this point which I tended to do a lot. I liked to think that I had some sort of sixth sense, (a spidey sense or whatever) about things and somehow I was feeling a bit uneasy that day. Like something was off..

That was another reason I wasn’t being very chatty today.

30 minutes later we had wrapped up lunch, deposited our plates and headed back to our stations to continue our jobs.

Never a day off, never a dull moment at the station..

Evening at the space station was just like mornings. Once we had logged off, Jury would take over from us for routine BAU;

Silas, Haruto, Abdul and I headed to the table tennis room where we would play for a couple of hours before dinner and then retire to our personal cabins.

Rachel and Jake were gamers and would head to the games room to play “War games”.

I liked to play “War games” as well but I wasn’t as good as them. Plus we hated the PDA.

Also, we were always worried we might walk in on them doing it in the games room (which was strictly prohibited) but Rachel was the sort to believe that rules are meant to be broken.

As we were in middle of a close game, Jury made an announcement on the speaker system.

“Breach detected in containment unit 7”

Containment unit 7.. I racked my brain to remember.. that was where the the microbes were housed.

It was the penultimate module in the space station and the one where Jake spent most of his time.

Jake was our resident Doctor as well as Medical research specialist. Most of his time was spent with virus and bacteria cultures and researching cures for the latest plagues.

Although Containment unit 7 wasn’t our concern, in the event of a breach it was always all hands on deck.

We promptly headed to our stations and logged in. I checked the system reports and could see that the unit had already been sealed off. Still had no idea about the breach though.

We got onto comms but Jake’s voice was missing.

As soon as we did, Rachel’s agitated voice said

“Can’t bring up Jake on comms. He was at that unit.”

I broke into a cold sweat. I quickly brought up the live feed and saw Jake’s unconscious body slumped at the bottom of the lab next to his research bench.

I think that Rachel saw it too because she let out a whimper and immediately went dark.

Haruto was our mech engineer so I asked him to deploy a drone to run physical checks. I needn’t have because he was already on it.

We watched the bot enter the unit through the service hatch, and check Jake’s vitals. He was alive but his vitals were low.

The bot launched into the air so we could get a better view. A broken test tube seemed to have fallen on the ground next to Jake where he must have dropped it.

2 vials lay untouched next to a microscope. The drone ran an Atmos check and promptly reported a contaminant.

Something had gone horribly wrong.. We wouldn’t be able to figure out without an investigation.

“One of us will have to go inside to extract Jake.” said Silas’s solemn voice.

I was the newbie so automatically excluded from the mission. The logical candidate would be Silas but it was Abdul that volunteered. He was the second mech engineer and therefore redundant to some extent so it was logical for him to volunteer.

In any case, we would be there along with Jury to guide him.

10 minutes later, Abdul was suiting up with help from Silas. I could hear Silas giving instructions through the comms. Nobody had gone to check on Rachel and I felt that I should. So I logged out because it would take another 20 minutes for Abdul to get ready.

I found Rachel in her Cabin. I knocked before entering but didn’t wait for an answer. I entered to find Rachel sitting on her cot, staring at her overhead LED display which was focused on Jake’s body. Rachel seemed to be shell shocked.

I sat next to her and

“He’s gonna be ok. We will get him out” I whispered.

A single tear ran down her cheek.

“I don’t think he is coming back from this.. that pathogen, do you know what it is?”

Her voice was choked with emotion

I didn’t say anything. She sobbed and muttered

“That’s one of the most virulent strains of the Genova virus.”

I guess that Rachel knew this because of the pillow talk. We usually didn’t discuss our specific duties but I suppose if one spends enough time with another Space worker they knew specifics.

“How can you be sure?” I asked.

“Because that’s what Jake told me before he headed to the unit.”

“Why would he suddenly decide to work on it in off hours?”

“Something that I said.. he said he had an idea about the receptors.”

This was jargon for me and Rachel was the resident genius so she obviously knew what she was talking about.

“So why do you think the pathogen ..?”

“Didn’t you see the diagnostic report?” she said cutting me off

“It reported a contaminant” I replied.

“The DNA strain..” she said as she started sobbing.

I put an arm on her shoulder as is the norm when consoling somebody.

“We will get him out. I’m sure he will be fine.”

“He won’t” she said with a finality. “You should get back to your station”

As more diagnostic data came in, Silas gave us the low down.

Apparently there was a concentration of Nesflurane in the air which had caused Jake to become unconscious.

So it was evident that the Neflurane had caused him to lose consciousness as he was working with the pathogen. As to why he wasn’t wearing protective gear was anybody’s guess.

The tube had fallen from his hands as he lost consciousness which in turn had caused the pathogen to become airborne.

General security guidelines clearly stated that in the event of a breach or contamination, the area had to be sealed off and isolated.

Emotions were running high and we were debating about extracting Jake’s body sans Rachel who was still sequestered in her cabin.

Finally, we decided on middle ground.

We would setup a Negative Pressure Room in the Containment unit itself. Medication would be administered or delivered through medi bots (this was part of standard operating procedure) and nobody would enter the room.

Hopefully the meds would do their job and Jake would make a full recovery.

So finally, 3 hours later, Abdul decompressed, recompressed and entered the isolated containment unit, fully suited and protected.

He gingerly picked up Jake’s body and with the help of mech bots, placed his fragile frame on a cot.

With help from Jury and the bots, we setup monitoring, IV lines, Ventilators and feeding tubes.

The entire process took around 5 hours, at the end of which we were all mentally drained.

Abdul finally exited the chamber, decompressed, decontaminated and headed straight for his cabin where he would stay in isolation for 3 days.

Rachel was still nowhere to be seen.

I didn’t sleep well that night. I tossed and turned and kept feeling as if someone was poking me.

I woke up dreary eyed to the sound of my alarm.

A beeping notification on my LED overhead display caught my attention.

It was a notification from Jury, urging us to convince Rachel to head into therapy (again this was as per procedure).

But she was there at breakfast time, not her usual chirpy self but definitely not impaired.

We kind of intervened and urged her to head for therapy but she was having none of it.

“Look, I am here to do a job and I will do what I have to do. I might be all broken up about Jake but it doesn’t mean I will abandon my post and start crying into a pillow.”

We left it at that.

The rest of the day was uneventful. We kept on eye on Jake’s vitals and he seemed to be stable. The infection hadn’t progressed into his lungs yet so the meds seemed to be taking effect.

The next morning though was terrible. Absolutely nightmarish.

We were woken up at 4 a.m by Jury to the sight of Jake convulsing in his makeshift cot. We weren’t on comms so had no idea what Rachel must have been going through. By 5 a.m. Jake lay in his cot, lifeless.

This was bad.. really really bad. My first instinct was to go check on Rachel and this must have been exactly what the others thought as well.

We congregated outside her cabin but after knocking and calling out to her a few times, we realized she probably wasn’t in there.

We asked Jury to confirm her whereabouts.

Jury’s answer chilled us to our bones

“Rachel’s vitals are undetectable within the confines of the facility.”

At first, we couldn’t quite believe what Jury was conveying. We asked Jury to elaborate but it simply rephrased

“I cannot locate Rachel within the physical boundary of the facility.”

“Can you at least retrace her steps from her last known location.”

“She was last detected at Airlock 7.”

My mind was racing. Airlock 7 was the closest to us. We made a beeline for Airlock 7 and immediately checked the logs. The last decompression was an hour ago. Rachel was flotsam.

And then there were 4

We sat in the mess hall, three dejected space workers. We had lost our resident medic and our Astronomer/Physicist.

2 of our close friends and allies, all in the space of a day.

Silas solemnly got up to get us drinks. We downed the bittersweet whisky, silently remembering our experiences with the 2 departed souls.

A few minutes of silence and Jury started calling out ‘Attention’ messages.

We decided to occupy ourselves with work for the remainder of the day. Lunch was a private affair this time around, as each of us didn’t want to talk about it.

I kept thinking about how Jury had specifically suggested that Rachel get therapy. She had refused outright which meant that she was definitely in control of her emotions. Something wasn’t right here..

The next day, I decided that some things just were not adding up. Call it my sixth sense or spidey sense tingling, I suspected that there was something out of the ordinary.

I didn’t tell anyone before I could be sure from my investigations.

So I headed to Rachel’s cabin and asked Jury to allow me access. Since she was already reported deceased, Jury granted me access after getting me to verbally agree to an indemnification that it slowly and excruciatingly narrated to me (it needn’t have but since it was mandated..).

I agreed and the door promptly opened up to reveal neat quarters. Except for the LED OHD that had been defaced with the words

“I did this” with a black marker.

A still image of Jake’s tortured body was the last image the OHD would ever display.

“This is bullshit” I thought to myself. “Why would Rachel blame herself?”

Everything else was untouched. There was nothing out of place. Which made it even more suspicious.. was this some kind of sabotage? I had seen enough movies to start suspecting Jury as well but AI had clear boundaries in 2065 and it just wasn’t possible for an AI to overstep its bounds.

I needed an ally but obviously could not trust anyone. Not even the AI. All I could trust were the facts.

I quickly grabbed breakfast so that it wouldn’t seem like I was behaving abnormal.

Then work. But it looked like I was working. Once I had logged into the mesh, I started to carefully check all the camera footage.

I saw Jake enter the unit and begin the experiment. I saw him slump and fall to the floor as soon as he had picked up the test tube. I went backwards a few hours. Nothing.. a few hours more.. nothing.

What the fuck?!

Our Cabins didn’t have live feed to protect our privacy so I had no clue what had transpired inside Rachel’s cabin.

I followed her around for the past couple of days.. nothing!

In fact, the more I searched, the more perplexed I was. There was nothing out of place. Everyone else was accounted for as well.

After having spent an unproductive day looking at footage of people going about their routines, I logged off for the day and decided that I had probably seen too many movies.

We met up for a bit in the mess hall, and discussed this and that. I don’t think anyone wanted to talk about what was going on. Least of all me.

We did talk about replacements though which we knew would take a couple of months. It took me a couple of months to come onboard after Charlie’s untimely demise.

No one really talked about Charlie too which was surprising, given the way he had perished.

Out for a space walk, hit by debris and they weren’t able to haul him back on time. As to who, what, why happened that day, again nobody really wanted to talk about it.

That night, I tossed and turned and kept getting the feeling as if someone was sitting on my chest. I woke up a couple of times to take a pee and drink water, then went right back to sleep. Couple of times, in my dream, I could sense somebody in the background asking me politely to ‘Go fuck yourself’.

Morning was back to the grind. And so it remained for another 3 days or so.

One morning, we got an alert from Jury about a possible leakage in the waste and hygiene compartment. Jury had detected a leak in one of the pipelines and it would require manual intervention to fix it.

Given the current situation, it was considered an all hands on deck situation because if there is one thing that must be addressed immediately in a space station, its always leakages. Water tends to mess up circuitry and the last thing you need is a faulty airlock.

Abdul was in charge. He had completed his quarantine and was out an about, quietly going about his work like he always did. He proceeded to don protective gear and head into the Recycling module.

As he entered, he opened a panel in the wall and shut down the system to stop any further leakage.

Then he proceeded to run diagnostics and run physical checks. He quickly spotted the problem. There was a rupture in one of the pipes heading into the water recovery system.

He got to work, repairing the damage with lots of duct tape and adhesive. Suddenly, a warning alarm went off and the system started to come online.

Water started to leak out the patch and Abdul looked around in confusion.

“What the fuck?” muttered Silas on comms.

“Jury can you explain why the system has come online?”

“I did not instruct the system to come online” said Jury and if it were a person, I daresay it would have said this defensively.

Then we noticed that the water pressure was increasing and the leakage started to increase in volume as more water sprayed out the leak. Abdul tried to work faster, furiously winding duct tape around the leak but to no avail. Suddenly the pipe burst and water started to spray everywhere.

“Abdul, you need to shut it down again!” I shouted.

He knew what he had to do and was already running towards the panel.

He wrenched the panel cover open and started to push some buttons. It seemed like the panel was unresponsive.

‘Was the leak in other places as well?’ I thought to myself.

The water had started to accumulate on the floor and this was getting dangerous now. We had to find a way to shut down the recycling system or the water would seep into critical systems and cause further failures.

It was obvious now that the manual override wasn’t working so we needed to find a way to shut off the power to the module.

“Abdul, get out of there, we need to shut down the power.”

He nodded and headed to the airlock. It didn’t open.

He pressed the button frantically but the door was unresponsive.

There was a crank to open it manually but we could only open it from our side.

“I’ll get Abdul out, the two of you head to the supply station and cut off the supply.” said Haruto as he logged off comms.

We logged off as well and I ran to the supply module to meet Silas at the console.

We quickly went through the manual to make sure we weren’t making any mistakes. The procedure looked pretty straightforward.

I navigated a system of menus to get to the screen that would allow me to shut down the power supply to the recycling unit.

I quickly found the right menu, got to the commands I needed to run and did so.

The message “Override successful” appeared on the screen and Jury relayed the information of our success to us in its mechanical voice.

We heaved a sigh of relief.

Next, we brought the secondary recycling unit online; It would suffice till we were able to fix the primary.

By the time we were done, it had been a couple of hours.

We asked Jury to report on the status of Haruto and Abdul.

“Abdul is sequestered inside the recycling module. Would you like to communicate with him?”

“Yes, turn on broadcast.” said Silas.

“Haruto, whats the sitrep?” asked Silas commandingly.

“Can’t get him out. Even the manual override isn’t working. And the module is kinda flooded.”

“Jury is there any other way to extract Abdul?”

“The only other way is an external extraction.”

This wasn’t great. An external extraction would mean we would have to take a spacewalk, enter through the emergency exit hatch on the other side of the recycling module which was the waste management module; this was connected to the Recycling module via ducts which would provide enough space for Abdul to crawl to waste management. Then he would have to suit up and space walk back with the one of us that was extracting him.

“And there is no alternative? What about cutting the door open?” I asked considering all possibilities.

“In 8 hours, we will have to seal off the recycling module. This will not be possible if you cut the door.”

That made sense. So we needed to maintain the integrity of the module so we could seal it off from the rest of the station.

So then if one of us had to volunteer, it would have to be Silas because compared to his function, ours was more critical.

The gravity of the situation wasn’t lost on Silas.

“I’ll suit up immediately.”

3 hours later, Silas was already space walking across the hull. The walk itself wouldn’t take more than 15 minutes. Then decompression, recompression and waiting for Abdul to suit up.. as per our estimate this would take about 5 more hours before Andul and Silas would be back inside.

We asked Abdul to wait until Silas had recompressed and entered the Waste management module. We didn’t want any further mishaps or leave any room.

Another 2 hours and Silas gave us the all clear over Comms.

We decided to maintain contact at all times so we could hear Abdul’s voice as well.

“You are good to go Abdul.” said Haruto.

“Roger” said Abdul as he climbed into the vent and started crawling.

His journey to the other side was uneventful. Silas provided him a clean change of clothes and a spare suit to walk back.

“I don’t think I’ll be able to decontaminate” said Abdul as he changed into his suit.

“Its a 15 minute walk I think you should be ok.” said Silas.

They spent some time decompressing before venturing out into space. The outer door burst open and they began the perilous walk back. Silas out in front and Abdul following him with a line connecting them both to the exterior hull.

A couple of minutes into the walk and Abdul started to breathe heavily.

“Hey Abdul, you ok?” asked Haruto.

“I seem to have difficulty breathing..” he gasped.

Something was wrong.. “Silas you need to get back inside the station, Abdul seems to be in trouble.” barked Haruto.

Silas was unresponsive.

“Silas, can you hear me?” asked Haruto urgently.

“Jury is there something wrong with Silas’s comms?” I asked.

“There seems to be some sort of interference with his comms” reported Jury.

Meanwhile, Abdul’s breathing had started to get raspy. He seemed to be asphyxiating.

We quickly checked for the suit’s vitals and noticed that his suit was running low on oxygen.

“What the fuck, didn’t Silas check the suit?” I asked in exasperation.

Suddenly Silas’s voice broke through. It was broken at first but cleared up in a bit. He was panicking

“Abdul is in trouble, I am trying to get him back to the airlock.”

“Silas, didn’t you check his suit?”

“I did. What’s the issue?”

“It’s running out of oxygen.”

“What? That’s impossible. Can you check for blockages?”

We ran another diagnostic and saw that there was fluid build up in the suit’s oxygen delivery chamber.

“How does that happen?” I wondered. I wasn’t the resident physicist so had no idea.

“Jury, why is there fluid inside the suit’s delivery chamber?”

“The suit must be compromised.”

“We checked it. Can you explain how it got compromised?”

“Negative. I only have information about its status of being compromised.”

“Jury, this is an unacceptable response” I shouted.

Meanwhile, Abdul was clearly tanking as his vitals started to drop. He was barely breathing.

They had reached the hatch and Silas was preparing for entry. A few minutes later, they were inside the chamber. Abdul collapsed to the ground as the oxygen seemed to have run out.

“How do I reoxygenate?” asked Silas frantically as the decompression process began.

“You can’t” said Haruto with finality.

We had assembled in the mess hall, the remaining 3 survivors and we were shouting at each other.

Silas had to leave Abdul’s body in the Waste management module which had now been sealed away from the rest of the station; Along with the recycling unit.

The secondary unit had been activated and it looked unlikely that we would be able to re-activate the primary.

“God damnit Silas I’m pretty sure you didn’t check the suit.” I said angrily as we sat down.

“Check the logs. I ran a systems check.”

I did and he had.

“Then how the fuck does this happen? I don’t think its a coincidence.” I said glaring at Silas.

“Are you insinuating something?” asked Silas angrily.

“Yes I am. These deaths cannot be coincidental. Its fucking sabotage.” I shouted.

“Wait a minute, you can’t be serious” said Haruto shocked and disgusted.

“I am. I don’t have any evidence but it sure looks like sabotage.”

“And you think I did it?” asked Silas pointedly.

“Well, through process of elimination, yes I think its you.”

“It could be you” said Haruto suddenly. I glared at him.

“The fuck is wrong with you? What would I have against anyone, I’m the new guy.”

“Yeah and you must be going stir crazy” said Silas, turning the tables on me.

“Fuck you Silas.” I said slamming my fist on the table.

Then I felt my spidey sense tingle. Something wasn’t right. Just in time, I ducked to avoid a robotic arm swiveling down at me. It missed and slammed into the table, sheering it into pieces.

It was the pantry robot, swinging its arms around wildly, trying to kill Haruto next. We dodged and made our way behind the kitchen counter where it looked like we would be safe.

“Has the AI gone rogue? And how the hell did it get out from behind the counter?” asked Haruto cowering along with us.

“Jury! What the hell are you doing?” I shouted in anger.

“I am waiting for your instructions” said Jury.

“Why are you trying to kill us?” asked Silas.

“I am not trying to kill you. That is against my mission parameters.”

“There is a bot in here trying to kill us.” I said pointing at the bot swiveling its arms menacingly beyond the counter.

“I am not in control of that bot. X-5182, stand down.” commanded Jury but the bot continued to dance around with flailing arms.

“Its malfunctioned. This again is not a coincidence.” I said.

“Yeah no shit sherlock” said Silas sarcastically.

We kept an eye on the bot which was desperately trying to find a way around the counter but there was no door as the counter wasn’t designed for occupants. As to how it had gotten out was a mystery.. And therefore if it had gotten out..

“Jury, how did the bot get out? Is it built for mobility?”

“Yes. It exited through the maintenance hatch.”

“Jury, seal the maintenance hatch!” I barked.

“Affirmative”

The bot had gone around, probably trying to get back in through the maintenance hatch but it wasn’t able to thanks to Jury.

So it came back around front and continued to swing its robotic arms around menacingly.

Suddenly, a blending machine came to life and started whirring menacingly. Then the coffee machine, and finally all the other machines came alive, making a menacing and foreboding cacophony.

“What the hell?!” said Haruto, eyes wide with shock.

“This is inexplicable.”

Then something clicked in my head.

“Jury can you run a spectral analysis of our vicinity and detect anomalies?”

We waited a couple of minutes for the result.

“Anomaly detected in your vicinity. Would you like to communicate?”
‘Communicate?’ we looked at each other, silently saying ‘What the fuck’

“Jury did you say communicate?”

“Affirmative.”

I looked at the others and they nodded.

“Open the channel Jury”

Suddenly everything went quiet. It was so silent, I swear I could hear the hair prickling on my neck.

At first there was some weird static noise from the speaker system. Then unintelligible rasping noises. Then a chilling whisper

“I did this.. I did this.. I did this” repeating on a loop.

I broke into a cold sweat and I suppose the others did too.

“Who are you?” I managed to ask.

“You did this… You killed me”

I looked at the others to see if it made sense to them but they just shrugged.

“Jake?” I took a wild guess.

“Jake is not. I am..”

That confused me even more.

“Jury can you analyze the voice sample and extrapolate it to the crew member’s voices.”

“Analyzing..”

2 minutes later

“Charlie Mendoza”

“What?” we said in unison.

“The voice pattern relates to Charlie Mendoza”

“Charlie?” said Silas standing upright. “What do you want?”

“Ritesh can go.. you die” said the rasping voice again.

“It wasn’t our fault Charlie. We tried everything we could.”

“I know.. you killed me. It is your turn.”

“Is this for real?” asked Haruto finally sussing up the courage to stand up and voice his opinion.

“You must atone..” said the voice.

“Jury is the threat supernatural?” I asked in the hopes that Jury could weigh in.

“Inconclusive. I do not have enough evidence to support the hypothesis.”

None of us at the station were religious. That was one of the requirements for the crew. So we were having a really hard time believing all of this.

I decided to ask some more questions to eliminate possibilities

“Charlie is there a god?” I asked in all earnestness.

“Only death..”

“Is there an afterlife?”

“Only nothing and the absence of nothing..”

He had started to sound like Jury.

“What can we do so that you will let us live?”

“They must atone.. they will die.”

I gestured to the others to get their attention.

“I don’t think he is going to relent. He clearly has some telekinetic powers or some shit. It gives him agency to gain physical control over some aspects of this station. The only way out of this is if we constantly keep an eye on each other and ask Jury to help out as well. Jury can always scan for its presence.”

“I think that’s a good plan. Its the only way we can survive till the backup arrives.

“Mission log 12 November 2026: I have never felt more alone in my life. Everyone is dead. I tried my best to save them. But I am no God. Just a mere mortal. It has won. And now it won’t stop talking to me.”

“Who are you talking to?” said a rasping voice behind me.

Follow me Ritesh Shergill

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